The Standard format (then referred to as the Modified format) was introduced in 2001. Tournaments in the 2001-2002 season were played in a format that only allowed cards from the Team Rocket expansion on up through Neo Genesis (with the exception of Sneasel, which was banned). Since then, Play! Pokémon has continued to rotate out expansions once per year, usually after the World Championships, to keep the game fresh and, some speculate, to keep players buying cards. The 2009-2010 tournament season did not feature a rotation, and the rotation for the 2010-2011 season rotated out only four expansions, keeping roughly two years' worth of cards in the pool. Additional expansions are added to the current Rotation three weeks after they are released in the United States. Starting from 2016, they were added to the current Rotation on the third Friday in the month of release.

If a card in an Standard-legal expansion is a reprint of an older card, all prints of the card can be played in an Standard-legal expansion-legal deck (e.g. AquapolisEnergy Switch). However, some cards significantly differ in wording between older prints and newer prints (e.g. Pokémon Fan Club from Aquapolis compared to its Ultra Prism iteration); those cards cannot be used in sanctioned tournaments. The exception is cards that have received errata (e.g. Base SetPotion); all printings of cards with errata may be used in sanctioned tournaments. The Yellow A Alternate cards were introduced in 2017 which were reprints of cards from previous expansions with an alternate artwork. These cards are only allowed in the same formats as the original print.

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Foreign language cards

Prior to the 2009-2010 tournament season, foreign-language prints of cards could also be played without limit, as long as the user provided a local-language reference outside the deck. Starting with the 2009-2010 season, however, sanctioned events began to require players to play with cards printed in English or an region's local language (for example, players in the United States are restricted to English cards only, whereas players in Canada can also use cards in French). Some American players who had invested in Japanese versions of cards which were generally less expensive, voiced their displeasure with the change of rules, and as a result, the rules were amended for the 2009-2010 tournament season to allow up to 10% of a player's deck (six cards) to consist of foreign-language cards. Beginning in the 2010-2011 season, Play! Pokémon followed through with their initial plan to allow only English and local-language cards in premier events.